Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE MAGIC BOW, by CHARLES CROS


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE MAGIC BOW, by                    
First Line: Her hair was blond as autumn wheat
Last Line: Until its tresses touched her feet.
Subject(s): Death; Hair; Man-woman Relationships; Dead, The; Male-female Relations


Her hair was blond as Autumn wheat,
And downwards, in a golden sheet,
It trailed, until it touched her feet.

In music strange she spake alway,
Like some sweet seraph, or a fay;
And fringed with black, her eyes were gray.

He deigned no rivalry to heed,
When, scouring hill and dale with speed,
He bore her off upon his steed.

She on all suitors in the land
Frowned with disdain—serenely grand—
Until he came and touched her hand.

Her soul by love was so o'erborne,
That, when he smiled with heartless scorn,
She drooped, desponding and forlorn;

And in a last caress she said:
"With my long hair, I pray thee braid
Thy bow to charm some other maid."

Wildly and long she kissed him, e'er
She died. Obedient to her prayer,
His bow he braided with her hair.

Then,' like a blind-man who, for pay,
On his Cremona's strings doth play,
He woke a melancholy lay;

And all with ecstasy were filled,
For in each chord the passion thrilled
Of the fond maid his scorn had killed.

The King advanced his fortunes high;
And the brown Queen was lured to fly
With him beneath the moonlit sky.

But, when he bade his music flow
To charm her ears, the fatal bow
Upbraided him with strains of woe.

When the slow dirge no longer plained,
They died—their goal still unattained—
And the dead girl her hair regained;

Her hair, that, blond as Autumn wheat,
Trailed downward in a golden sheet,
Until its tresses touched her feet.





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